闭上眼，它们就会走掉。她父亲说，也许那只是你的想像。不管怎样，一个女人的本分是睡觉，才能和玉米饼星星一道醒来，那星星现得那样早，早到她起来时，眼角的余光里，能瞥到那些后腿，藏在水槽后面，藏在四脚的盆下面，藏在无人修理的鼓胀地板下面。

阿莉西娅，没了妈妈的她，很难过家里没有一个大过她的人爬起来做装午餐盒的玉米饼。阿莉西娅，继承了妈妈的擀面杖和渴睡的她，年轻聪明，头一次去大学上学，两趟火车和一趟巴士，因为她不想在工厂里，在一根擀面杖后过她的一生。她是个好姑娘，我的朋友，整夜地学习，瞧见老鼠，那些她父亲说不存在的老鼠。她什么都不怕，除了四条腿毛茸茸的东西。还有父亲们。

Alicia Who Sees Mice

Close your eyes and they'll go away, her father says, or You're just imagining. And anyway, a woman's place is sleeping so she can wake up early with the tortilla star, the one that appears early just in time to rise and catch the hind legs hide behind the sink, beneath the four-clawed tub, under the swollen floorboards nobody fixes, in the corner of your eyes.

Alicia, whose mama died, is sorry there is no one older to rise and make the lunchbox tortillas. Alicia, who inherited her mama's rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university. Two trains and a bus, because she doesn't want to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin. Is a good girl, my friend, studies all night and sees the mice, the ones her father says do not exist. Is afraid of nothing except four-legged fur. And fathers.